by Elsa Jade
Pinkie meant to kill her.
But she couldn’t let them unleash the net on the yurk. The poor animal was slowing too much to avoid the trap, and Delta—
Gritting her teeth against the recoil, she jolted out from her scant cover and pumped three shots into the same stabilizer strut as the other sled. But Pinkie had learned as fast as she had and tilted the sled so that the shielded section caught the modified rounds and pinged them off at the poor aliens stuck in the quicksand.
Pinkie fired another sizzling round of orange that sent sandstone spraying in all directions, and Lindy swore, yanking back behind the square of black armor—all that was left of her protection.
“Surrender or die!”
How did it speak English? How did it know she spoke English? And why on Earth hadn’t she asked for the shotgun as well as the carbine? Was it way too late to pretend that this was all a dream?
Hiding behind her little square of armor here was about as effective as it had been elsewhere in her life. Undoubtedly shit was still coming at her, only now she couldn’t see it.
Gritting her teeth, grabbing the chunk of armor like a shield, she sprang out from behind the remaining nub of sandstone. There is no way any more of her shots would have meaning, but she could at least serve as a distraction for her CWBOIs.
With a battle cry that would’ve made Minerva proud, she unloaded two more rounds in Pinkie’s face. Extraterrestrial armor might be nigh impregnable, but when an explosive projectile trailing orange sparks was coming at your bulging fisheyes, you ducked.
And Pinkie did—just as the blue-plated aliens on the other side of the sled expanded the net toward the yurk.
The sparking strands hissed as they snaked through the air with an almost sinister writhing, like an insubstantial but smothering fist.
But with the precarious tilt on the sled, it fell short, wrapping around an innocent willow instead, and the yurk pinwheeled away, wings sweeping through the glimmering sandstone dust.
Pinkie howled again in frustration, no words this time, or at least none that Lindy could understand. The alien swiveled the gun at Lindy and fired.
The sharp-edged orange beam slammed into her shield, blowing her back into the rock. The silvery pathways where Delta had injected his nanites flared silver, dispersing the beam, but a few gouts of faded orange reflected off the shield, dripping down to her legs.
An agonizing hammer blow of pain smashed through her lower joints, and she screamed. Before she could suck in another breath, her legs went totally numb, and she fell to her knees. It was all she could do to keep the black shield raised to protect her chest and face, but that just gave her an up-close view as the silvery pathways guttered out.
The next blast would end her.
With her arms quivering from exhaustion, like the yurk’s wings, the shield dipped.
Pinkie opened its mouth—thick gums with tiny needle teeth—in something like an evil smile. “Die then,” it said.
As the gun hummed, one of the blue-plated aliens shouted something incomprehensible. Pinkie didn’t understand it either or wasn’t interested and just smirked at Lindy—
—As the neat loop of rope settled around the muzzle.
Apparently aliens didn’t consider rope any more of a threat than quicksand. But they’d never seen a cowboy in action.
The lasso yanked tight in Delta’s hand as the yurk pivoted in midair, smooth as fresh-churned butter, pulling the gun off target so the orange flash burned into the front quarter of the sled instead of into Lindy.
The blue-plated aliens wailed as the sled listed precariously. Pinkie pivoted to the controls, but it was too late.
With a wild shriek of her own, the yurk soared over the sled, down, and around. Delta brought the slack in hard, as if the sled was nothing more than a wayward steer. One graceful flip of her wings and the yurk spun toward the other side of the canyon, swinging the sled behind her in a cruel game of crack the whip.
Somebody might’ve shouted “Yeehaw!”
In the instant before the sled flipped end over end, Pinkie leaped from the bow. From under its white plates, fleshy membranes flared between its limbs, letting it glide awkwardly. It slammed into the sandstone wall just below Lindy’s ledge as Delta on the yurk slung the sled toward the quicksand.
Lindy grimaced at the screech of metal over stone; Pinkie was climbing toward her. She dragged her numb legs back from the edge as pink tentacles emerged over the rim. Each tentacle had what looked like a little mouth at the tip, but that big, gummy, tiny-teethed real mouth was worse as Pinkie clambered up onto her ledge
The alien hissed at her. “Ugly dirt-thing.”
Dirt-thing, like Earthling? Was that a bad translation or an insult? Lindy snarled back. “This is Earth, asshole. You’re standing on my earth.”
And she shot it, because she could count to one, and she’d saved the last of her six shots.
The numbing effects of the blaster beam had crept through her body, so she missed that nasty mouth. But the souped-up rifle discharge caught Pinkie square in the chest and knocked the alien off the cliff.
Across the canyon, Mach rose to his full CWBOI mass, lifting the hog-tied six-limbed alien over his head. The world-record calf tie was just over six seconds, and Mach had obviously needed longer than that to subdue the scavenger commander, but she supposed he got extra points for style, not to mention the extra legs.
With a thunderous roar that was too raw and primal for an advanced, spacefaring being, he launched the scavenger into the quicksand with his fellows.
Just as another big black shape emerged at the canyon edge.
“Where the hell you been?” Mach bellowed.
Cosmo hefted the ship’s cannon. “What the hell yourself? I was waiting for you to let someone escape.”
Overhead, the yurk echoed their shouts with a victory cry that echoed through the badlands.
And Lindy slumped to the sandstone.
Chapter 10
Vaulting off the yurk, Delta landed on the narrow, battered sandstone ledge straddling her sprawled body.
“Lindy!”
He’d strained, maybe broken, something in his arm yanking on the roped scavenger ATV, but he ignored it. He could always grow another arm, eventually. Right now he needed to hold her.
Gently, he scooped her away from the rock. “Lindy?”
The few nanites he’d been able to give her had burned out, but he knew she was alive. Because she had to be.
He held her to his chest, holding his breath until he sensed hers, faint and rasping but right there, her heartbeat matching to his.
Closing his eyes for a moment, he listened to Mach and Cosmo hounding the scavengers from their vantage points. The quicksand was doing its work, just as they’d hoped, but that wasn’t enough. They had to finish this.
When he opened his eyes, Lindy was staring up at him. The sky-blue clarity made him smile. “You scared the hell out of me.”
Her lashes fluttered. “You should see the other guy.”
He peered over his shoulder. “The pink one? It’s at the bottom of the canyon, groaning.”
“Well, shit. That’s about how I feel too.” She twisted against him. “Except my legs…”
“You caught some of the scattered energy that partly stunned you. Give it a second.”
But she stiffened. “I need to stand.”
It wasn’t a command, exactly, but he took it as one. With an arm around her waist, he lifted her, restraining a grimace of his own.
But she must’ve caught the flicker of his expression. “You’re hurt.”
“The yurk was tiring, and I didn’t want to wrench on her when we roped the imglor vehicle. I suspect my implants and organics have parted ways in my arm, at least until my nanites can repair the damage. Nothing a few days of burnt toast won’t fix.”
Together, they descended the slope. By the time they reached the bottom of the canyon, she was steadier, and his organics were screaming in
silent anguish. But he’d reinforced the nanite flow in her armor for at least awhile longer. Mach and Cosmo kept watch from on high. And the yurk perched at the highest point.
Keeping to the larger stones that marked the edges of the quicksand, they faced the half-sunken aliens. Their armor had kept them semi-afloat, but their vehicles were long gone.
“Imglors?” Lindy mused. “Are they always invaders and scavengers?”
“No more so than every rancher is a rustler.”
She grunted. “And the pink one?”
He handed her his shotgun. “A virmlini. Good pilots, usually. If this one is here, I’m guessing this is the bulk of the crew, or even all of it. Shoot it again if you like.” He said that last louder, and the virmlini snarled as it crabbed backward toward the rest of its crew when Lindy gestured with the shotgun.
“Ugly dirt-thing,” it hissed.
Lindy racked a round, and Delta smiled. He let the scavengers see the smile, and most of them sank deeper into the mire.
But one tried to thrash, though all its limbs were bound. “By right of salvage, I claim the unauthorized shroud transport that crashed here.”
Delta studied the imglor commander. “Shrouds?” He pressed his fingertips to his lips and darted glances to both sides. “Oh no. Here? Where?”
“You,” the commander sputtered. “Those others.”
“Dirt-things,” the virmlini said, glaring at Lindy.
“We are Earthers,” Delta agreed, spreading his arms wide, despite the ache. He knew there was not the faintest gleam of silver in his pathways.
The imglor made an uncertain, horking sound. “But we collected a nanite cloud.”
Delta leaned over the edge of the quicksand to smile at the commander. “I’m sure the consortium will be thrilled to know you found their missing transport. And tried to claim it.”
Silence, except for the burbling of the quicksand.
“No need to tell,” the commander said. “Since it was a mistake.”
“Bad mistake, worse than breaking the embargo on a closed planet,” Delta agreed. “Lindy, will you go get that net? There’s a control module at one end to retract it.”
With another glower at the virmlini, she strode off. Only he could tell her steps were anything but confident.
He returned his gaze to the commander. “The shrouds were all lost,” he explained. “We kept only the worthwhile parts.” With a small shake of his head, he sighed. “It wasn’t as much as you’d think.”
When Lindy returned with the stunner net, bundled back into its parcel, he pointed the virmlini closer to the quicksand.
It went reluctantly. “Keyholder won’t be stopped,” it hissed.
Delta glanced at the murderous-looking Lindy.
He certainly hoped not.
He released the net over the virmlini and the sunken imglors. “Don’t hold your breath,” he told them and fired the stunner.
***
Fortunately, Mach hadn’t destroyed the imglor commander’s “harleyvee” as Lindy had dubbed it. Once they fished all the scavengers out of the quicksand—fairly easy once they were all unconscious and floaty—Mach and Cosmo loaded up the harleyvee with their stunned bodies.
Cosmo thumped the cannon down on top of them and punched at the guidance controls. “Gimme a lift back to their ship and I’ll take care of it.”
Mach glanced at Delta. “I’ll deliver this lot to the abandoned Intergalactic Dating Agency outpost in Sunset Falls and call in a report to planetary security to retrieve them. Might be gone overnight, if you could let Lun-mei know.” He huffed out a glum breath. “She’s going to kill me anyway.”
“Right? And you deserve it,” Cosmo said. “Having all this fun without her.”
Mach squinted at their matrix-brother. “Your definition of fun involves way fewer donuts than hers does.”
Cosmo turned away to caress the cannon. “I could like donuts,” he muttered.
From her perch on a nearby rock, Lindy asked, “Is that going to be enough to erase the awareness of your presence here?”
The three shrouds exchanged looks. “I guess we’ll see,” Delta said.
When Mach and Cosmo took off, he boosted her up to the yurk’s withers.
“Maybe we should walk back,” she fretted. “I don’t want to hurt her. Or you.”
“I think her wings and my arms are stronger than your legs right now,” he told her.
She looked down at her fingers curled around the horn of the saddle where he’d wrapped the rope. “Yeah.”
The subdued tone sent a tremor through him that had nothing to do with his missing nanites. “Would you like to stop at the cavern first?”
She jerked up, eyes wide. “God, I almost forgot.” Clouds of tears fogged her clear blue eyes. “What kind of mother am I?”
He sprang up behind her, enfolding her in his wounded arms. Somehow her closeness made the ache less, though of course it wasn’t like she could give his nanites back. “I have no idea. I was hatched from an egg.”
She tilted her head back against his shoulder with a thump. “That’s… Well, no, actually, that’s more reassuring than I would’ve guessed.”
He pressed his lips over her ear. “Just hold on.”
“That’s probably good advice too—”
The yurk sprang straight up.
Though she’d no doubt be mortified to realize it, Lindy clung to the saddle horn in front of her as the yurk gained altitude with every wing beat. He’d never been more grateful for her practicality—except maybe when she’d saved a shot for the virmlini—because he wasn’t sure he could catch her with his half-broken arms.
Wasn’t that his only job as an imprinted shroud, as her lover and contributor to her child—to hold her? She’d seemed aghast at the idea of owning him. But if he gave himself to her, how was that different?
The wind of flight whipped away any possibility of meaningful conversation, but the warmth of the mid-morning sun was a balm. They swept low across the badlands, their shadow racing over the patches of brilliant snow and dark green pines.
When the yurk banked toward the limestone escarpment that hid the cave mouth, he almost wished they could keep flying. A shroud’s only charge was taking life when told; and now he was taking charge of a new life? No wonder Lindy was panicking.
Leaving the yurk to bask in the sun, they descended into the cavern. Without the power draw of the disguising veil, the lights through the tunnels were almost daylight bright. But the pyramid pulsed with the same gentle fog he’d left behind.
Carefully, he drew off some of the mist so they could look inside. “Is she bigger?”
Lindy shook her head. “She’s tiny.”
“No, I think she’s definitely bigger. And look. She didn’t have hair before.”
With one finger, Lindy traced above the patch of shining black fuzz. “She’s going to have Amber’s hair.”
“Now that we have the harleyvee, we can power the pyramid back at the ranch without any trouble.”
“No trouble?” She shook her head. “Right. I just have to explain the sudden appearance of a newborn and then raise her and then—”
As tenderly as he’d worked the pyramid controls, he turned her to face him. “You preserved your wife’s eggs. You went through rounds of invitro fertilization. You didn’t want to tell anyone until you were certain. I’m the father.”
She stared at him. “Really? You think my ranch hands would believe that?”
“I think they’d love it.” He quirked one eyebrow. “And most of that is even true, in a way.”
She coughed out a laugh. “Only if you’re looking at it through the wrong end of a telescope.”
“But it won’t be far away.” He gazed down at her. “It will be right here.”
A delicate tremor went through her depleted armor and layers of flannel, right through the assured queen he’d come to know. “You have a ship now, goes anywhere in the universe. You could leave.”
When he lifted his hands to cup her face, the hurt wasn’t in his arms, but his heart. “You could ask me to stay.”
Her eyes glimmered. “If I did, you’d have to obey me, right?” Before he even nodded, she added, “So I can’t.” She put her hands over his, hers fingers cold, and peeled away his hold.
Frustration ripped through him despite her gentle rejection. “And if I asked you to ask me?”
“You’re free.” Her voice cracked.
“So are you, and yet you stay.”
“Because I love it here. I love…”
He said nothing, waiting for her to make the connection—wanting for her to take up the offer, the challenge he’d thrown toward her.
When she raised her shining gaze to his, he held his hands out again, only halfway this time.
“I love this place too, Miz Lindy, because it’s my home,” he said. “And because you are here. Because I love you. I might be half-robot, and the least of those, even less at the moment without my cloud, but all of me that remains knows that I love you. And if I fight anymore it’s only for the chance to show you what that could mean.”
Her hands were fists at her sides. “I lost so much. And now I have…” One wild gesture took in him, the pyramid, a wider, higher arc that he thought might encompass the rest of the known universe. “I feel like I’m falling.”
“I’m here.” He curled his fingertips inward, a small cup if she wanted to land there. Even if he’d had all of Mach’s force and all of Cosmo’s guns, he knew he couldn’t win her if she didn’t want him back.
For a breathless moment, she hesitated. Then with a soft cry, she launched herself into his embrace.
He let out his own breath in a gasp and caught her, letting the momentum swing them both around in a joyous arc.